Darwin Awards.

[Joe Wordsworth]

Every year (and several times throughout) I hear people mention the Darwin Awards... but every year is just reaks of bad-taste for me. A celebration of death, but in no way honoring anyone--entirely drenched in mockery.

I think what put the cap on the head for me was the one with the guy who went to change a tire on a non-level grade and ended up getting crushed by the vehicle falling off of and bending the jack. I heard that one coupled with some (common and lowly usual) comment about how funny it was and how he must be an idiot and etc., etc., etc.

And i couldn't help but think, well--shit. I've changed a tired on a non-level grade before. I've even had a jack bend and break on me. I suppose I could have gotten hurt and I could have not tried. But at least one of those times, I really needed to get somewhere and didn't have much in the way of money.

I heard that story and thought, "Geez, how much of a fucking dick do you have to be to, essentially, make fun of someone accidentally dying?"

*shakes head*

 

[kendo1]

Let's hope you don't pass on your genes.

 

[English Lady]

I'm the same, it's all a bit distaseful for my liking -I simply cannot get a laugh out of a death, however bizarre or self inflicted it may be but then I don't like those set up jokes they often do on radio, sometimes on TV. Where they ring up/go to some innocent person and pretend to be something their not to really get the person angry and upset. I don't find it funny at all, it makes me cringe.

 

[Samilong]

I just wonder if, on some level, the Darwin Awards 'work' because of an element of schadenfreude in all of us... we enjoy laughing at other people's misfortune.

Death is inevitable - not even Michael Jackson can avoid it, try though he may - but stupid deaths are avoidable, and in the Darwin Awards we have a celebration of those whose stupidity should serve as a lesson to others. Therefore, they serve a valid role.

Besides, for some people a Darwin Award (albeit posthumously given) is probably the highlight of their otherwise mundane lives, giving them the fifteen minutes of fame that Warhol promised but they never received...

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

I just wonder if, on some level, the Darwin Awards 'work' because of an element of schadenfreude in all of us... we enjoy laughing at other people's misfortune.

Schadenfreude... *shudder* Ever since Boston Legal and The West Wing, that term just keeps popping up everywhere. Damn you, Hollywood!

Death is inevitable - not even Michael Jackson can avoid it, try though he may - but stupid deaths are avoidable, and in the Darwin Awards we have a celebration of those whose stupidity should serve as a lesson to others. Therefore, they serve a valid role.

Well, truth be told, any circumstantial death is avoidable--as the circumstance is avoidable. The stupidity of the person or event isn't a unique qualifier. To say that a valid role is one that serves as a lesson to others, one could then make the case that virtually /any/ act is valid because there's always bound to be something learnable from it by others. As qualifiers for validity, learning experiences for other people is pretty weak.

Besides, for some people a Darwin Award (albeit posthumously given) is probably the highlight of their otherwise mundane lives, giving them the fifteen minutes of fame that Warhol promised but they never received...

A low thing that mockery of the unfortunate and deceased is seen as a favor by virtue of popularizing through cliche'.

*shakes head*

Man, oh man, what's with the kids today?

 

[Liar]

I remember somebody dissecting the Darwin Award list that floated around the net in -03 or something, and found that nine out of ten stories were unconfirmed or even easily debunked urban legends. Makes me womnder if those who read it even thinks it's true. So what is it then, people laughing at tacky fiction? It satisfies a need in people to see the world as a more polished and well directed place, where unpleasant shit might happen, but not without a good punchline.

 

[Boota]

I'm not bothered by the Darwin Awards. I don't believe most of them anyway. The guy dying in Joe's example is probably true, though. It's not bizarre enough, ironic enough, or technically stupid enough, in my opinion, to make the Darwin Awards.

A very smart friend of mine died in a stupid way, alcohol influenced accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Because of that people who didn't know him had no idea that he was not a moronic gunslinging miscreant. There was much more to my friend who died in this stupid manner and I'm sure there is much more to the lives of those Darwin Award recipients who truly existed.

I think there is probably an element of the macabre in most people who "enjoy" stories like this. Particularly when they are steeped in irony or are just plain weird. I remember hearing one, I have no idea if it was true or not, about a lawyer working in a skyscraper giving a tour to some young law students. He was attempting to demonstrate the strength of the glass in the buildings by running at them and slamming into them full force. He got away with it. Once. On the second run he hit the window, and he was right. It didn't break. However, the entire window came out of the frame that held it and he plunged to his death.

To me, that sounds fake, but it also sounds like a darkly modern version of an Aesop's Fable.

 

[Pure]

schadenfreude is alive and well. also one's illusions about being 'far smarter than average,' as compared with the awards people who are 'far dumber than average.'

perhaps those enjoying the awards are like the people enjoying their interviews with Borat, unaware that the object of laughter is not Kazakhstan, but the interviewed person himself.

---
one interesting question for me is 'how does one create a 'darwin' story?' which is like the problem, 'how do you start an urban legend or effective hoax.?'